Google to add new tools in Play Store to help more games get discovered

As this year’s Game Developer Conference gets underway in San Francisco, Google says it is making some changes to its Play Store tools specifically to help game developers bring more attention to their titles.

It’s a fact that trying to find new games in the Play Store, especially ones made by small indie teams, can be very hard indeed. Today, Google says that it is changing the Play Store promotional algorithms so that more games get promoted based on their continued user engagement, rather than just how many installs a game has.

In addition, Google will also be launching new game-related pages on the Play Store in the near future. These pages will have links to games that have been hand-picked by Google editors that will put a spotlight on “optimal gaming experiences on Android”. These pages will also put the focus on specific game genres like role-playing titles and racing games, with Google’s own editorial reviews of these genres.

Finally, Google has confirmed it has started letting developers run their own strikethrough price promotions on paid apps and games. A few weeks ago, we noticed that some paid apps were being listed temporarily for free, for the first time in the history of the Play Store. Today, Google confirmed these kinds of promotional price drops for apps and games were being tested before today’s official launch. It added that during this pilot, “developers not only saw a 3x–20x lift in installs during their promotions, they also maintained a nice lift once the sales ended.”

We think all of these efforts, especially the ability to offer paid apps for free for a certain time period, will definitely lead to more quality Android games getting the attention they deserve. What do you think of these changes? Let us know in the comments if they will help you try out more games.